Empress of Rags and Riches
by WillowWoman
Summary: Starting as soon as Shilo leaves the opera. Not sure where it's going yet, but there is heavy Shilo/Graverobber interatcion. And a mysterious new person my brain created. Not sure where it's all going... join me as I figure it out?
1. Chapter 1

Shilo Wallace turned away from the limo and walked.

Her father's blood stuck to her hair, her dress, her arms. The drying tears felt flaky on her cheeks. She did not rub them away. Her father's blood. She could feel it, thickening on her wig. The wig would probably be ruined. The thought was idle, passing in and out of her consciousness like a whisper, a breeze. Her mind was in chaos and yet she felt totally numb. Her mind was in chaos, yes, but the chaos was muted by the roaring in her ears and the thudding of her heart. The Largos. The opera. Mag. Her father.

Her father.

The numbness was a blessing to her. A part of her, the quiet part that murmured to her beneath the chaos, knew that if the reality of what had happened really hit her, she would break. She would shatter, right in the middle of the street, just scream and scream until she must stop or burst. So she walked. She walked silently, slowly, arms by her sides.

People stared at her as she walked down the street, away from the opera. Her head was high, her chin tilted up like a proud china doll's. She could hear shouts and muttering, meaningless words tossed in her direction. They bounced off of her, off of the dazed shell that somehow constructed itself around her. She walked. She didn't know where she was going. She didn't know what she was doing.

Shilo walked into the depths of the city, not looking back. She didn't know anything anymore.

The crowd thinned out as she walked down the road. There were some halfhearted attempts made to follow her but whoever they were gave up when she showed no signs of stopping. She made it maybe a few blocks before sirens screamed past her, making her jump and look around. She had no idea where she was. She studied the street signs but they were meaningless to her. She hadn't paid attention to which streets the limo took as it ferried her from her mother's tomb to the opera. Shilo didn't know where her house was in relation to the opera, and at that moment, she wanted nothing more than to be in her room, safe and secure, with the door locked against anyone who might come in and break down the fabric of her life any further. Unfortunately, she was well and truly lost. The thought flickered in her mind, to go back to the opera and try to get the limo driver to take her home, but she was wary of the Largo children. Rotti Largo was dead, and he had wanted her to take over GeneCo. A seventeen-year-old recluse in charge of the largest, most powerful corporation in the world? Surely Mr. Largo was mad when he made that decision. She couldn't even find her way home, how was she supposed to run a corporation?

The colder, more analytical part of her mind kept thoughts of her father firmly out of her consciousness. She could feel them there, floating, beating little papery wings against the wall she hastily slammed into place, trying to get in and overwhelm her. She kept them locked out and tried to take stock of her situation. No good. The situation was too large to handle. She needed to get home. That was all she wanted.

She was wary of asking people for directions. The opera had been televised, her face, her blood-covered body, were on the screens high above her as the story of the Genetic Opera was rehashed over and over for the world to see. The surviving Largos were being interviewed, their voices carrying over the channels intermixed with rapidly flashing commercials. Would people be looking for her? Of course they would be. Rotti Largo had waved the will around on stage, and he'd said all he needed to do was sign the paper. That meant that her name was already on the will, didn't it? Some lawyers would want to talk to her, if nothing else. She didn't want GeneCo, she knew that. If some of GeneCo's enforcers found her, she would be picked up and spirited away, and who knew what the Largo children would do with her. Luigi's temper was well-known, and Amber Sweet was, well... unpredictable. The best thing to do would be to hide. That was all Shilo wanted, was to hide away and figure out what on earth she was going to do.

Though these thoughts chased each other in her mind in an endless exhausting circle, she wasn't getting any less lost. It was getting later and she didn't feel capable of doing anything other than putting one foot in front of the other. She kept walking, the streets getting darker, the building even closer together, the stink of the garbage in dumpsters getting more overpowering. She took another turn, and came to a small, narrow alley. Shilo leaned on the wall next to a dumpster at the end of the street and looked down at the street before her. It was lifeless and claustrophobic, only one streetlight glowing dimly. It reminded her of the alley in which she had seen the Graverobber dealing Zydrate to multicolored, beautiful, sickening whores and addicts, and to Amber Sweet. The way they had swarmed around him reminded her of an army of mindless ants converging on a spider or beetle. Sometimes the target could fight off the tiny, vicious onslaught. Sometimes not.

She felt her legs suddenly tremble and rather than have them give out entirely she allowed herself to sink to the filthy ground. Thinking of ants and spiders made her think of her collection, which made her think of her bedroom at home, which made her think of....

"Daddy." She murmured it aloud, and her voice was cracked and wavered, like a frightened child's. She wanted her father. She wanted him to rescue her, to take her home and fuss and fret and make her lie in bed, make her rest, make her feel safe. Even uttering the word was enough to break Shilo down. The wall shattered and the first sob threatened to come spilling out. She clamped her lips shut and kept the sounds muffled as she curled up on the ground, arms wrapped around herself as her body was wracked with anguish.


	2. Chapter 2

Shilo did not know how long it took for her to stop crying. Somehow, by some miracle, she remained undisturbed. Her quiet sobs died off and she leaned against the wall, eyes closed as her body shuddered with the occasional aftershock of her crying session. For a moment or two she let herself just breathe and her body relax. She felt wrung out and exhausted, but far from better.

The sound of strange voices echoing off the walls of the buildings that lined the streets roused Shilo from her stupor. She looked up, eyes wide, suddenly, painfully alert. She hunkered down in the corner of the dumpster, hidden-- she hoped-- by its shadow as the voices got closer. Two people rounded the corner ahead of her, a man and a woman. The taller figure had a bag at his side that emitted a faint blue glow. She watched, begging internally for whoever it was to just go away, as the woman gestured defiantly. She was backing up though, and the man was walking toward her with a confident stride. They entered the glow of the streetlight, and were just close enough for Shilo to make out what they were saying. She stared at the pair of them, making herself as small and silent as she could, paralyzed. She reminded herself that they didn't know she was there and as long as she stayed put and didn't move, they would never know, and just go on their way.

"C'mon, Graverobber," the woman said as she stumbled a bit, walking backward as she was. "I've never done you wrong before, you can trust me."

While she spoke, Shilo saw the Graverobber glance around the tiny alley, gazing in her direction for a second longer than strictly necessary. She waited for him to make a sign of recognition, or try to roust her out, but his gaze settled back onto the woman, making Shilo breathe an automatic sigh of relief. He must not have seen her. The cards were still in her favor as long as she kept quiet.

"Can I, now?" he said, crossing his arms and putting a hand to his chin thoughtfully. "And that means I should give you five vees without being paid for it how, exactly?"

"I'll pay you back, you know I will," she insisted.

Graverobber. Shilo paid even sharper attention after she heard the stranger address the man with the glowing bag. Were all Zydrate dealers known as grave-robbers, or was this the same man that had shown her home after rescuing her from the tent guarded by one of the Largo security team? The same one who had almost gotten her killed hours before, in the graveyard? No, it couldn't be. But there was no mistaking the voice as a downdraft of wind caught it, directing it her way. If any odor came her way, it was masked well enough by the stink of the dumpster she was cowering beside.

"No, Karly, I don't know that. I know you buy a vee off me pretty regularly, and hey, that does me nothing but good. I also know that I don't even give free hits, much less free vials. And I also know that you know that, too. So what gives?" He prowled after her, hair swinging gently as he spoke with authority and no little grace. The woman, Karly, kept backing up, taking them closer and closer to Shilo. Graverobber was not growling or acting threatening at all. Rather, he was asking the questions much like a parent would to a child who was caught with a hand in the cookie jar. There was a near-playful goading to his tone, but underneath it there was a tired, exasperated air, with a layer of power and the ability to use it. The tables could turn quickly, or so it seemed to Shilo.

Karly didn't look like a prostitute. At least, she didn't look like the ones that Shilo saw earlier that day. She was wearing simple everyday clothing, and had blond hair pulled back into a slightly messy ponytail. "I'll pay you back, Graverobber, I swear on my life. But this is important." Her voice was urgent. "I'm a good customer, right? Please, I'll be able to pay you back by next week. I'll even pay you an extra, oh, say, twenty bucks if you want."

Graverobber pounced suddenly, lunging forward and grabbing her by her shoulders and slamming her- not terribly hard- into the wall not ten feet from Shilo's hiding place. She jumped at the suddenness of the motion and tried to make herself even smaller.

"An extra twenty, hmm?" Graverobber said musingly, with a definite tone of mockery. "No, Karly, not even for double. But you've made me pretty curious tonight. You're not a Z-freak, I know that. You come, you buy your vee, and you leave. You don't Z up, but you buy often enough. Regular as clockwork. And here you are, middle of the night, waiting for me, just like normal. Here you are asking to get five vials off me. On your word alone that you'll pay me back. You sound a little desperate, and that's got me mighty curious." To Shilo, from her distance, his grin looked more like a leer.

"This is making me wonder how stupid you must be. Because this isn't going to end the way you want it to."

The young women tried to get out from his grasp, and took a stab at more ineffectual pleading. "You don't understand. I know you have no reason to take my word for such a large amount, okay? I'm not stupid! But this is important. Name the price and I'll get it somehow, but I really need this, okay? Please!"

Shilo could hear every word. As they got closer to her, before the dealer shoved his client against the brick wall, she could see that it was definitely the Graverobber she had met earlier. The thought that he might be able to show her the way home crossed her mind, but as the exchange unfolded before her she thought less and less of asking him for help. The way this conversation was held in what was apparently an abandoned alley, and the way he appeared to be toying with this young woman named Karly was making Shilo ever more wary of making her presence known. This was obviously supposed to be a private exchange.

Graverobber sighed. "The answer is no, Karly, honey. Too much invested in five vees. Go on home." He pointed at the end of the street, stepping back and giving Karly some space again.

"But--" Karly tried again.

Graverobber's shook his head, and he sounded suddenly frustrated. "What do you want it for, anyway?"

Karly sneered a bit. "I thought your rule was we don't ask questions, you don't ask questions, remember?"

"Don't get cute, little girl," Graverobber snapped. "The answer is no, now get going. I mean it." He gave the young woman a shove toward the end of the alley. She shook her head, looking defeated. She gave Graverobber a long look, before tucking her hands into her pockets and trudging toward the other end of the alley.

Shilo continued to watch the Graverobber as one of her legs started to fall asleep. He leaned against the wall, harshly lit up by the streetlight, and lit a cigarette. She was even more hesitant to trust him after she saw the scene between him and the customer. Would he show her home again? Dare she ask? He looked irritated and tired, scowling at the wall of the alley. He was a drug dealer, one who robbed graves of their precious Zydrate, and supplied it to the underbelly of the city. The kind of person who was most definitely not to be trusted. And he looked like he was in a foul mood indeed.

"I know you're there, kid," Graverobber said suddenly. His angry air seemed to evaporate and he looked up. "You can come out. I don't bite." He flashed a grin in her direction. "Too hard, anyway."

She gasped and jumped when he spoke. How had he known she was there? Shilo hesitated before slowly rising to her feet, leaning against the dumpster as she tried to shake the feeling back into her leg. The pins and needles were just short of painful.

Graverobber continued smoking. "Fancy finding you here." He glanced at her as she entered the ring of lamplight. "You look like shit."

Shilo rubbed suddenly at the blood-- her father's blood- on her arms. She didn't say anything. She was startled by the offer of a cigarette, and she turned it down automatically.

"Smart kid," Graverobber said with a wink as he puffed with flair, putting the pack back into his pocket.

"Can you take me home?" Shilo asked before she could change her mind. Her voice was soft and skittish, and she shivered. The temperature had started to drop and her dress didn't cover much. "I need to go home."

Graverobber looked at her sharply for a long moment or two. She felt small and helpless under his scrutiny, and didn't like the feeling one bit. "From what I hear, you're the new empress of GeneCo," he said. "And you want to go home instead?"

Shilo flinched a bit when he called her the empress, and he noticed it, she was sure. She just nodded. "I'm lost," she said simply. She was too tired and worn out in every way imaginable to do much else. This night had turned into a nightmare and she wanted it to end.

Graverobber didn't seem surprised by her insistence. He just cocked out an elbow for her, and she took it uncertainly, shivering again as another downdraft of wind hit her body, leaving a trail of goosebumps in its wake. Graverobber looked at her with his sharp eyes again, before he softly jiggled her hand loose and took off his coat, offering it to her. Shilo stared at it for a brief second, imagining all the dead bodies that it must have come in contact with and all the germs that were parading in the fur and cloth. A nasty hit for her immune system to take. With her condition... but there was no condition, was there?

Shilo nodded her head and murmured her thanks as he helped settle it on her shoulders. It was warm from his body heat and very comfortable, and surprisingly, it didn't stink as badly as she expected it to. Graverobber offered his arm again and started leading her out of the alley.


	3. Chapter 3

He was talkative. Graverobber didn't ask if she was all right, he didn't ask her anything personal at all. She was waiting for it. The questions would come eventually, they had to. Though the story was playing above their heads, things were so much better from a first-person account, weren't they? Especially stories from the lips of bloody, broken girls.

He didn't just ramble. He made an attempt a time or two to engage her in conversation, but she just shook her head in reply, if she acknowledged his words at all, to everything he directed her way. He didn't seem overly bothered, though he kept shooting her those sharp glances that seemed to take in every detail at once. She noticed but didn't respond. Let him look. What had she to hide anymore? Let him see the mess she was, the dry, itchy blood flaking from her skin, dress dried stiff with the stuff. The wreck of a girl that she was.

When he seemed to have run out of things to say, he began singing to himself. Again, Shilo didn't mind. She was trying to pay close attention to the route. She didn't like being lost in her own city and wanted to learn the streets as best she could. She was having a hard time of it, though. She kept getting distracted by unwelcome, awful, crippling thoughts, as well as the quiet knowledge that there was no one to tell her to go or stay, what to do, how to do it. She had the freedom she had always longed for, but all she wanted to do was curl up in a ball in her hidey-hold of a bedroom and make everything go away.

He guided her through the graveyard, rather than up to the front door. She was briefly surprised, but then dismissed it. It was only natural for someone who made his living robbing graves to navigate through familiar territory. It was probably better this way. Her father had always kept the house locked up tight. If there was a spare key of any sort, she certainly didn't know about it.

She slipped her hand from his elbow and started to shrug the jacket off. "Thank you," she said, offering it to him.

Graverobber took the jacket from her, shook it out with a muted flourish, and swung it onto his back. He seemed to hesitate, studying her. His face appeared stern. Whether it was the white makeup and dark lips set in a line on his face or the way his brows creased in the middle of his forehead, it was slightly intimidating. And yet, there was something hidden in his eyes that softened the look somehow. Shilo didn't know what to make of it, so she let it go as well. Her mind, now that the self-preserving numbness had worn off, felt entirely too full, and her heart was heavier than she'd known was possible.

"Take it easy, kid," he finally said, before turning his back and walking away. Shilo watched him go with solemn eyes. Before he was out of vocal range, she called out, "Hey, Graverobber."

He turned and took a few more back paces in her direction. "Yes?"

"How did you know I was there?"

Shilo watched the tall man as he adjusted his coat and pulled his hair from underneath the collar. "You think you're the only one who's hidden in a dark alley, kid?"

He seemed to genuinely want a response, so she shrugged. "I... I guess not."

His deep chuckle seemed to settle on top of the graves and earth that stretched between them. "I know what to look for. Black dresses actually stand out in the shadows. Darker outline." Shilo filed that tidbit of knowledge away on reflex, cataloged it to be looked at later. With that, he made the same half-bow he made the first time he escorted it home, and turned again, disappearing amongst the graves.

She wanted to call out again, to thank him again for helping her find her way home. Or maybe to ask if she was going to see him again. Or maybe fear of the empty house with all of its secrets and memories crept into her heart, sliding thin fingers around her throat and making her shiver with what probably wasn't just the cold, making her seek company for just a little longer.

Instead, Shilo turned and shoved open the door of the tomb. She shut the door behind her, but instead of crossing the tomb and heading up through the secret passage, she sat down at the foot of her mother's monument. She had hated and loved her father, as she had hated and mourned her mother. Now they were both gone, and Shilo was utterly alone.

She didn't cry any more that night. The meltdown by the dumpster seemed to have sated her for now, but she could feel the sorrow gathering strength inside of her. Instead of giving in to that sorrow, she forced herself to try to think of what she needed to do. She was finally free, free to be the grown woman she knew she was meant to be. But unfortunately, that freedom didn't include having someone look after her and keep her life hassle free. She needed to decide for herself what to do. What would GeneCo and the Largos do with her father's body? And would they want to see her about the matter of the will? Part of Shilo hoped that the old man was just crazy, that he hadn't really willed her GeneCo.

And what was she going to do with herself, once the matter of GeneCo was resolved in some way or another? She didn't ever have some little girl fantasy about what she would be when she grew up. Shilo had spent most of her childhood waiting for her blood disease to kill her, to suck her dry from the inside out. Her father had never so much as hinted that she was in danger of death as long as she followed the doctor's orders, but Shilo, around age nine or so, had become convinced that she was doomed to share her mother's fate. Her father had tried to reassure her, saying that her condition was well in hand, that she was being ridiculous. She wouldn't die as long as she stayed in her room and took her medicine and wore her mask, her father insisted.

Shilo stopped the train of memory in its tracks. There was no disease. It was some sick creation of her father. Maybe her mother hadn't even died of a disease. At the opera they said her father had killed her mother. Who's to say he hadn't created one for her mother? Shilo didn't know what to think. She felt she would shatter completely, and forced her mint to turn away from the implications.

The smoldering rage that she bore inside her since she was a little girl has gone up like straw. In one mighty rush her rage had inflamed her, only to be put out just as quickly by her father's blood. Thoughts of her father at all threatened to derail her completely. She knew she needed to sort out her thoughts, a task which seemed laughable to her. She actually chuckled out loud at the thought of putting herself back together again. The sound echoed in her mother's tomb. Muted white lights from the world outside streamed in through the window in the door, washing Shilo in shadows of blue and grey that very nearly hid the blood rubbed at it again. Slowly at first, trying to brush it away. It was stubborn stuff, sticking to her hairless skin like paint. The more it resisted, the harder Shilo rubbed, until she was scratching at her arms and shoulders with a little too much much enthusiasm. The pain from her fingernails digging into her flesh only made her more anxious, so she scratched even harder until an all-too familiar feeling made itself known.

The first thing she always noticed was her heart. It wasn't that it was beating faster or slower, so much that it was beating louder, fuller. The sound echoed throughout her entire body and as it did, her lungs got tighter and it was more and more difficult to draw in air. At the same time her stomach cramped, sending pain shooting up and down her abdomen. Automatically Shilo reached for her pills, but they were gone. They weren't needed, they were poison. She had left them at the opera. Shilo struggled to keep herself from panicking. She didn't have a condition! She wasn't really sick, right? Why was this happening?

The world swam gently before she sank into the darkness.


	4. Chapter 4

(Author's note: For some reason I am having some strange formatting issues. There is a POV shift that SHOULD be denoted with ~*~, when the switch goes from Graves to Shilo and back again, won't show up on the published version. I've reuploaded, replaced, edited, and nothing seems to be working. If it's hard to follow you can check it out on my LJ at thepissedoffme dot livejournal dot com.

Sorry for the inconvenience, all!)

The door to the tomb clicked shut with a gusty creak, and Graverobber hummed to himself as he went to work. He figured that since he was already there, he might as well be productive. After some clandestine snooping, he was pleased to find another entrance to that jackpot of a mass grave. He'd had a fine old time among the dead, harvesting a good fifty or sixty vees before climbing back out. He stunk of decay and had more than a few unidentifiable smears of this or that. Body dandruff, he called it, but it was more of a slime, an ooze. Human bodies made their own postmortem mucus. As always, though, it was worth it. And there were countless more bodies to pick from. The mass grave could easily keep him in Z for months.

The vague purpling of the eastern sky told him that dawn was nearing. This was his cue to clear off. He left the daylight to the more contributing members of society when he could. He considered himself a gentleman of the streets, and his kingdom was one best walked in darkness.

Before heading out, he looked up at the girl's house. There were no lights on. There was no sign that the girl was inside. She was probably just sleeping, but it was like the house had swallowed her up. Graverobber knew damn good and well what she'd undergone at the opera. The whole city knew. She hadn't said a word about it, though, so neither had he. But he did wonder what she would do now.

The ground beneath Shilo wasn't comfortable. Why wasn't she in bed? Did she miss a pill? She couldn't take listening to her father lecture her. Maybe if she was lucky, he hadn't gotten back yet. He didn't have to know that she skipped a pill and had another accident. He wouldn't know that she'd messed up again. Her head throbbed for a couple of silent minutes before the pain subsided, a familiar sensation to her. Still, Shilo felt weak, like her limbs were made of rubber, and her skin was clammy. It would pass soon, as it always did.

She waited for the pain in her head to dissipate completely before she tried opening her eyes. When she opened them, she saw the ceiling of her mother's tomb, not her own claustrophobic bedroom. There was the slightest moment longer of confusion before the fog cleared completely. Shilo settled back into reality, the reality of the Genetic Opera and the revelations about her father... and her father's death. She held her breath against the pain that came crashing down, threatening to overwhelm her, the sudden pricking of tears at the corners of her eyes.

It took her a minute, but she was able to press the feelings back. She needed to get inside. It wouldn't do to stay in the tomb forever, and she needed a shower. Shilo tried to keep a hastily formulated list of things that needed to be done present in her mind. She needed to move to the next step on the list. First order of business- to find the mask that she thought she remembered leaving just inside the door.

There- she had it. She spied it in the corner, next to a spent can of teargas, a remnant of Rotti's tricks. With somewhat shaky legs, she stood and picked it up. Next item on the list-- find and light the torch. She flipped the release for the hidden door and felt around for the torch. Ah, there it was. Shilo lit it with the lighter that was kept in its little nook next to the torch rack.

Slipping the uncomfortable mask on, she headed up through the tunnel into her father's home.

In the early mornings, when his days were done, he lay in whatever passed for a bed with the sun creeping up and illuminating the rented room of the week through a filthy window. This was the time for his mind to wander, before sleep claimed him. He got a lot sorted out in his head during these quiet morning hours.

It had been two days since the night of the opera, and the public eye was already moving beyond the girl and on to the future of GeneCo. Tabloids and gossip were the way news traveled in the streets and Graverobber could get his hands on plenty of both. Not Today's Face, not the Sanitarium Weekly, not even the Metro Gazette could dig up much more on the Wallace girl than what had been announced at the opera; all sketchy facts at best. Her father was a real piece or work, that much was clear. Nathan Wallace had been a Repo man who had murdered his wife and infected his daughter with a fake but debilitating disease created by doping her blood. The tabloids painted her father as a monster. Graverobber's opinion wasn't much different on that score. The few details did shed a little bit of light on how he'd met her, at least. The poor kid.

She had stumbled upon him as he was going about his work, and he'd felt bad enough leaving her to the GeneCops. It was obvious, from the first moment he'd laid eyes on her in the graveyard, that she didn't know shit from chocolate about anything outside of her own comfort zone. He'd taken an amused pleasure in educating her to the finer points of the underworld beyond, and after making sure that his own skin was safe, he'd had feelings of genuine regret for letting such an untested girl become a casualty. When he'd seen her alive and unharmed at Sanitarium Square, Graverobber moved to apologize. By taking her home, he tried, in his own way, to make up for abandoning her in the graveyard. This made them even, he had figured at the time. He'd done her a bad turn and followed it with a good one, and returned her to that silent, lifeless house sound and whole, with eyes maybe a little more open. A wider perspective never hurt anybody.

He didn't argue with himself as to his reasons for his interest in the kid, but he did look at them carefully. There was no internal moral struggle. He didn't want to be her knight in shining armor. He'd saved her skinny ass twice as it was. The girl had been thrown to the wolves, and he didn't particularly want to see her torn apart by the pack, but what beyond that? What did he hope to get out of all of this?

When Graverobber was honest with himself, as he tended to be in those early morning hours, he realized that he was simply curious. He wanted to pry into the girl, figure her out, find out what had been kept hidden away. Besides, from what little bit he had gathered, it seemed that he might be the only person in the world she knew at all. She was beautiful, she was vulnerable, she was young, and he wanted to know more. She seemed to trust him and was probably a wreck from hell.

It probably wouldn't hurt to pay the kid a visit. He needed to do another harvesting run anyway. That mass grave was still ripe for the taking. Graverobber may have considered himself a gentleman of the streets, but he was still a graverobber. He decided to follow his curiosity and see what developed. He had no idea what his intentions were, but that rarely stopped him. The approach had normally served him well enough in the past. It made things interesting, in his opinion. This girl, this Shilo Wallace, made him very curious indeed, and Graverobber was a little like a cat sometimes. He followed whatever caught his fancy until he grew bored with it.

Maybe this could shape up to be fun.


End file.
